So I am just getting into the game and I was wondering where I should start on the Imperial route. I have a limited budget so I would prefer having to buy two core sets(I have the original which I realize in hindsight was not a good choice) and ideally I would only buy one or two expansions a month. Currently I have the core set and 1 of the TIE FO expansions. I think I like going the swarm route but I am not entirely sure if that is still viable. I would like to avoid the large ships for now.

Thanks!

Swarm is absolutely still viable and a great way to learn the game. There are negligible upgrades to worry about so you focus on basics like maneuvers, actions, and target priority. Jumping in at the deep end is a great way to learn to swim!

It's what I did after reading the sticky link thread and finding that TIE swarms were actually a thing. I've never regretted it.

Swarm is absolutely still viable and a great way to learn the game. There are negligible upgrades to worry about so you focus on basics like maneuvers, actions, and target priority. Jumping in at the deep end is a great way to learn to swim!

It's what I did after reading the sticky link thread and finding that TIE swarms were actually a thing. I've never regretted it.

Thanks for the advice. I will try to find this sticky you speak of.

If you don't want to buy a second core set, the TIE swarm is actually pretty good because you'll most likely want the damage deck from the original core set (which you have).

Unfortunately, no 100-point squads are super budget-friendly (that is to say, this game isn't budget-friendly), but to fly a 7 8-TIE swarm, you just need 6 more TIE Fighter expansions which will cost you $90 at the store, or around $65-$70 online.

Edit: Acutally you only need 5 more for a 7-TIE swarm (using Howlrunner as your main ace pilot). That should only cost you $50-$75 depending on where you buy.

The only thing I would say about the swarm as a new player is you ymtend to have limit options to fill out your fleet when your flying 12 point ships with a tight budget in growing your fleet. If maybe throw a more expensive ship in there with what you already have so you have some options. An advanced, a defender or even a shuttle if you decide to get brave and go for a big ship should give you a lot more playable list rather than having to take the same stuff all the time to hit the point limit.

The only thing I would say about the swarm as a new player is you ymtend to have limit options to fill out your fleet when your flying 12 point ships with a tight budget in growing your fleet. If maybe throw a more expensive ship in there with what you already have so you have some options. An advanced, a defender or even a shuttle if you decide to get brave and go for a big ship should give you a lot more playable list rather than having to take the same stuff all the time to hit the point limit.

Good point. You could get a 100-point list with just one Decimator and one core set, using only the upgrades that come in those two boxes.

Thanks for the advice guys. Looking at some of the swarm lists, it looks like it uses cards for sets all over the place. Is that pretty normal for a swarm list? Also, is it pretty common to buy just the cards online?

It depends on which swarm you're looking at. The original TIE swarm from the day of release is just 8 TIE Fighters with no upgrades. Four of those are often upgraded to Obsidian Squadron Pilots instead of Academy Pilots. Another version trades a TIE out to upgrade another TIE to Howlrunner (in the TIE Fighter expansion pack). She allows friendly ships at range 1 to reroll an attack die. It gives the swarm more offense. These two are the classic swarms that I thought you would play and that I'm assuming Arschbmombe was also thinking about.

More recently, there have been some variations of this. Most notable is the CrackSwarm. You have 6 Black Squadron Pilots, each with the Crack Shot upgrade. This is an expensive list since you will need 6 other ships in addition to your TIEs in order to get the Crack Shot elite upgrade card. I don't recommend trying to get this now because it is really expensive. On the plus side, you'll have both a Scum squad and an Imperial squad.

What other kinds of upgrades have you seen? Were you looking at other ships besides basic TIE Fighters?

At a heavily gloated price, but yes. Individual cards are usually running for **** near 1/3 the price of the kit unless it comes in a Huge ship then its even worse.

Usually better off getting the kit instead of the individual card. Yeah, you pay a little more, but you get a lot of other cards and another ship for the future if you ever decide to run it (or that faction). Thats how i got into rebels: i was NOT going to pay what they wanted for engine upgrade so i bought a falcon...welp..now i own almost as much rebel as i do imperials lol.

Fortunately TIE swarms dont demand a huge ship expansion, though having Chaser in there would be neat since he soaks up focus tokens nearby friendlies use. Unless you end up running palpatine (100USD expansion to get him) or the two Interceptor aces (Soontir/Jax) you can usually field anything imperial without buying nonimperial stuff or the huge ships. Even the two aces can be ran without autothrustors but they arent anywhere near as strong.

Actually TIE swarms are a good place to start out with in general. Theyre cheap, so you run a lot of them, and it forces you to learn to fly. I forced myself to run 6/7 TIEs between regular or tie/fo for quite some time to practice formation flying and get used to the bank turns. It paid off, as now i am insanely competent at flying between rocks and just BARELY not hitting them. Throws a lot of people off when i do that lol

It depends on which swarm you're looking at. The original TIE swarm from the day of release is just 8 TIE Fighters with no upgrades. Four of those are often upgraded to Obsidian Squadron Pilots instead of Academy Pilots. Another version trades a TIE out to upgrade another TIE to Howlrunner (in the TIE Fighter expansion pack). She allows friendly ships at range 1 to reroll an attack die. It gives the swarm more offense. These two are the classic swarms that I thought you would play and that I'm assuming Arschbmombe was also thinking about.

More recently, there have been some variations of this. Most notable is the CrackSwarm. You have 6 Black Squadron Pilots, each with the Crack Shot upgrade. This is an expensive list since you will need 6 other ships in addition to your TIEs in order to get the Crack Shot elite upgrade card. I don't recommend trying to get this now because it is really expensive. On the plus side, you'll have both a Scum squad and an Imperial squad.

What other kinds of upgrades have you seen? Were you looking at other ships besides basic TIE Fighters?

I was thinking about doing an interceptor swarm with soontir but I have heard you really need autothrusters to be effective with them. But it looks like they are only available in a scum set that I have no intention of ever using, especially not 4 or 5 of them lol.

I was thinking about doing an Intercepter swarm with Soontir but I have seen that autothrusters are pretty much a must for them and I believe they are with a scum ship I dont intend to use anytime soon.

Autothrusters are quite nice, but not mandatory. Also unless you're playing at a store championship or something most people are going to be ok with proxies for some cards.

Don't make the mistake of looking at regional or worlds level lists and think that's what you need to play friendly games.

You are correct, AutoThrustors are in the StarViper pack. You get two of them in there but its still a ship that comes with a lot of scum only crap. Upside its not a large ship so when you have all your imperial stuff and are ready to flesh out the optimal cards its not that hard to get one. When you see a card you want is only in a large ship you dont want to use, then it hurts lol.

Get your ships first though. I even bought the Raider before i bought non-imp stuff.

Thanks for the advice guys. Looking at some of the swarm lists, it looks like it uses cards for sets all over the place. Is that pretty normal for a swarm list? Also, is it pretty common to buy just the cards online?

That's pretty normal for almost every squad in the game at the moment. The strongest squads are generally going to be the ones that are able to mix and match from multiple expansions, even if they're not for that faction. TIE Interceptors and Advanced Prototypes really love the Autothrusters upgrade that came with the Scum StarViper. Decimators really love the upgrades that come with the Lambda Shuttle. X-Wings really like the 1-point R2 Astromech that's exclusive to the Y-Wing expansion. And so on.

That said, there's one very notable recent exception to this: The First Order TIE Fighter expansion. Juke and Comm Relay are among the nastiest combinations in the game right now, and Omega Leader, Zeta Leader and the Omega Squadron Pilots are all very strong ships. So a few of those mixed with original trilogy TIE Fighters will do pretty well by you.

The TIE f/o is the best single blister you can buy for imps. Omega Leader with Juke and Comm Relay is all right there.

I was thinking about doing an Intercepter swarm with Soontir but I have seen that autothrusters are pretty much a must for them and I believe they are with a scum ship I dont intend to use anytime soon.

Autothrusters are quite nice, but not mandatory. Also unless you're playing at a store championship or something most people are going to be ok with proxies for some cards.

Don't make the mistake of looking at regional or worlds level lists and think that's what you need to play friendly games.

Thanks. I honestly just want to fly interceptors because they look cool and I like the idea of just using overwhelming force(and dice) to focus fire on targets.

You are correct, AutoThrustors are in the StarViper pack. You get two of them in there but its still a ship that comes with a lot of scum only crap. Upside its not a large ship so when you have all your imperial stuff and are ready to flesh out the optimal cards its not that hard to get one. When you see a card you want is only in a large ship you dont want to use, then it hurts lol.

Get your ships first though. I even bought the Raider before i bought non-imp stuff.

Yeah seeing the TIE Advanced and Palpatine only available in a $100 expansion kind of sucks lol.

The advice above is spot-on, but the ship which is a must have as an Imperial pilot:

And, you'll need to buy this little bird to make him go-every-where-what?

To get the "gas in the can" for Soontir, so-to-speak:

Happy flying!!

Thanks. I honestly just want to fly interceptors because they look cool and I like the idea of just using overwhelming force(and dice) to focus fire on targets.

In that case, fly what you want! Pick up a TIE Interceptor expansion and the Imperial Aces expansion. Combined with your core set TIE Fighters, you have a squadron with 3 TIE Interceptors right there. Then you can fly it for a month, see what you like, and add new a new ship every so often to improve your list or give it a new flare.

Will it be tier-1 competitive? No. Will you be able to win games with it? Absolutely!

Well, TIE Adv isnt only available in the Raider kit. You can get it and Darth Vador as a pilot in a 15 buck kit on its own. Problem is its one of the earlier ships when they werent pricing the points right, so without the cards in the raider unique to the TIE Adv, they kinda suck lol. I'd rather run 2 academy TIE fighters than Darth Vador without the title card in the raider to give him a sensor slot at a discount.

Good deal of those earlier ships have a fix like that. Thats why the standalone TIE Interceptor is pretty trash, but if you get the Aces theyre pretty mean even w/o the autothrustors (just not AS mean).

Thanks. I honestly just want to fly interceptors because they look cool and I like the idea of just using overwhelming force(and dice) to focus fire on targets.

I would honestly recommend that someone new to the game not use Autothrusters even if you had them. Better to learn to fly effectively without them then learn using a chruch. And honestly, they don't have nearly the same impact if you aren't playing against a lot of turret based ships.

Yeah seeing the TIE Advanced and Palpatine only available in a $100 expansion kind of sucks lol.

I won't say it doesn't suck... But keep the following in mind.

Vader can still do quite well even without the X1 and ATC upgrades, it won't be as easy but he's still effective.

Palp can only be used on two ships and so unless you have one of those two ships, he's completely worthless.

Thanks. I honestly just want to fly interceptors because they look cool and I like the idea of just using overwhelming force(and dice) to focus fire on targets.

In that case, fly what you want! Pick up a TIE Interceptor expansion and the Imperial Aces expansion. Combined with your core set TIE Fighters, you have a squadron right there. Then you can fly it for a month, see what you like, and add new a new ship every so often to improve your list or give it a new flare.

Will it be tier-1 competitive? No. Will you be able to win games with it? Absolutely!

It is good to know that swarm is competitive though. I (probably) won't be doing tournaments for quite some time, but I would like to eventually so it is nice to know the ships Ill be collecting in the mean time will be useful in a tournament.

Thanks for the advice guys. Looking at some of the swarm lists, it looks like it uses cards for sets all over the place. Is that pretty normal for a swarm list? Also, is it pretty common to buy just the cards online?

That's pretty normal for almost every squad in the game at the moment. The strongest squads are generally going to be the ones that are able to mix and match from multiple expansions, even if they're not for that faction. TIE Interceptors and Advanced Prototypes really love the Autothrusters upgrade that came with the Scum StarViper. Decimators really love the upgrades that come with the Lambda Shuttle. X-Wings really like the 1-point R2 Astromech that's exclusive to the Y-Wing expansion. And so on.

That said, there's one very notable recent exception to this: The First Order TIE Fighter expansion. Juke and Comm Relay are among the nastiest combinations in the game right now, and Omega Leader, Zeta Leader and the Omega Squadron Pilots are all very strong ships. So a few of those mixed with original trilogy TIE Fighters will do pretty well by you.

The TIE f/o is the best single blister you can buy for imps. Omega Leader with Juke and Comm Relay is all right there.

These folks are right. If you want to avoid the serious cost of the Crack Swarm you can go FOs and still have a super-solid TIE Fighter based list.

Academy Pilot x2 = 24 points

Omega Leader, Juke, Comm Relay = 26 points

Zeta Leader, Juke, Comm Relay = 25 points

Omega Ace, Juke, Comm Relay = 25 points

If you have the starter and a single FO expansion, you only need 2 more FO expansions to run. That's a cheap shortcut to a pretty solid list. The Acadmies block and provide extra guns, the FOs are pretty **** tough for their points with Comm Relay and can really punch damage through with Juke. You could mess around with different other FOs instead of Omega Ace, I just made the highest PS FO for the points remaining.

so it is nice to know the ships Ill be collecting in the mean time will be useful in a tournament.

That's something else to consider... Many, likely most of the 'required' upgrades are there to fix ships that weren't that good when they were released, or to address issues in the meta.

Swarm is absolutely still viable and a great way to learn the game. There are negligible upgrades to worry about so you focus on basics like maneuvers, actions, and target priority. Jumping in at the deep end is a great way to learn to swim!

It's what I did after reading the sticky link thread and finding that TIE swarms were actually a thing. I've never regretted it.

Thanks for the advice. I will try to find this sticky you speak of.

You are most welcome. The link is the only pinned thread in the forum.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/126226-index-of-useful-links/

When I started there were no TIE FOs, so I didn't have the option of using them. I think they might be an easier path to follow. A good swarm of them is just 5 ships, usually two aces and three generics. The neat thing is that all the cards you need for them are in the new core set or the TIE FO expansion. With the older TIEs, the swarm is better off using some of the newer upgrades like crackshot which are inconvenient to acquire.

I was thinking about doing an Intercepter swarm with Soontir but I have seen that autothrusters are pretty much a must for them and I believe they are with a scum ship I dont intend to use anytime soon.

Autothrusters are quite nice, but not mandatory. Also unless you're playing at a store championship or something most people are going to be ok with proxies for some cards.

Don't make the mistake of looking at regional or worlds level lists and think that's what you need to play friendly games.

What he said ^

Never feel like you have to buy an expansion you don't want just to get cards that you do want

in 99% of your games a beer coaster with "Autothrusters" (or whatever) written on it in crayon will be good enough for 99% of your opponents (and if it's not, find new opponents)

Even when it comes to tournaments, you'll probably find that half the people there just bring a list made up from the cards they've got and aren't all trying to emulate the current hotness.

In terms of good buys, it's difficult to make a bad one.

TIEs and FOs are great ships - Interceptors - particularly the Imperial Aces set are worth getting - TIE Advanced (if you proxy the Title card from the Raider) are very solid - TIE Defenders (again with a proxy of the forthcoming kit in the Imperial Veterans set) are tough cookies - Bombers, especially with the forthcoming veterans treatment, have a lot to offer if you can master them .....heck - I'm really trying to think of a small-based ship that you won't enjoy ..... and I can't

Punishers are probably the iffiest of the Imperial small bases, because they tend to cost a lot more than their durability can account for - but if you can run them alongside a similarly threatening ship or ships to take the heat off them early on, you can make them do some work. And Redline in particular hits like a truck when it all goes to plan.